Judge Rules Allegation of Jury Rigging Was Lie

A former Alameda County prosecutor who said that he conspired with a trial judge to exclude Jewish jurors in a case that sent the defendant to death row is a liar, a judge ruled in an opinion forwarded to the California Supreme Court.

Judge Kevin Murphy, who was appointed by the state high court to investigate John Quatman’s allegations, said Tuesday that Quatman’s assertions “are not true” and that he is “dishonest and unethical.”

Last month, Quatman testified before Murphy that he colluded with now-deceased Alameda County Superior Court Judge Stanley Golde to exclude Jews so the jury would more likely send a killer to San Quentin State Prison.

Quatman recalled a private lecture about excluding Jews he said the judge gave him on April 28, 1987, as they were picking a jury in the capital case of Fred Freeman, a white man later sentenced to death for killing a bar patron during a robbery in Berkeley.

Murphy, however, concluded after a weeklong trial that the conversation never took place, no Jews were unlawfully removed, and Quatman “had a motive to embarrass the Alameda County district attorney’s office in general, and Dist. Atty. Tom Orloff in particular.”

Murphy said that Orloff had disciplined Quatman, now a Montana criminal defense attorney, for making disparaging remarks to a female colleague.

Murphy said Quatman’s “anger continued” even after Quatman left the office years ago, and that it took 16 years for Quatman to make the allegations.

The Supreme Court probably would have granted Freeman a new trial if the allegations were proven true.

The court probably will not do so now.

Quatman did not return calls for comment.